Category: Marketing

Are You Making This Embarrassing Mistake With LinkedIn?

Ani DiFranco once said that every tool is a weapon if you hold it right. LinkedIn can be a very powerful sales weapon — but it will backfire if you don’t use it correctly.

the wrong way to use a radio advertising sales tool
Photo by apops/dpc

LinkedIn has become a powerful tool for researching and making contact with new prospects. But like any other tool, there’s a right way and a wrong way to use it. I’ve received a couple of egregious “wrong way” examples in the past couple of weeks.

Both came from members of LinkedIn Groups I’m also part of. The writers have figured out that being part of these groups gives them the ability to contact complete strangers who are also members. They have not figured out how to use that ability.

The first one started like this:

Hi Doctor

Hope you’re doing well.

I wanted to take a few minutes from you today to mention how “hosted” video conferencing is changing real time collaboration. Although most of us know what video conferencing is, the only difference here is the word “Hosted”. Like every technology, now video conferencing is available on demand on cloud.

Here is a whitepaper that will tell you why this technology is spreading like a wildfire.

She wanted to “take a few minutes from me today”, but she offered no reason to give her those precious minutes. It would have been helpful if she’d “taken” a few minutes of her own to learn something about me before sending the message out.

The other one went like this:

Hi,

I saw your profile and felt you might fit the profile of what we look for in our company (Elite Sales experience to the SME/Enterprise Space)

Can you please review this YouTube video of our company and what we offer, and then give me your feedback on interest level?

No, I can’t. Or, more accurately, I can, but I won’t.

Any time you attempt to communicate — on the phone, in an email, or a LinkedIn message — with a client or prospect, you are in the “attention-rental” business. You offer information to the recipient, who “pays” for that information with a very scarce resource: his or her attention.

You must offer a compelling reason for your target to give you that attention. It starts with giving some indication that you know something about them.

I suspect that the folks who sent me those messages were attracted by the ability to blast out hundreds of them with the click of a button. It’s fast, it’s easy, and requires very little thought.

It’s also spam, and they’re running the risk of having their LinkedIn accounts suspended.

With great power there must also come great responsibility. — Spiderman’s Uncle Ben

Membership in a LinkedIn Group gives you the ability to find common ground with complete strangers and build relationships with them. But it’s only an effective weapon if you hold it right.

 

How to Judge Super Bowl Advertising: Follow The Money

Let me tell you why I am not a fan of Super Bowl advertising… it sends the wrong message to our LOCAL advertisers. – Tom Ray, Jim Doyle & Associates

how to judge Super Bowl television advertising
Photo by Nomad_Soul.DPC

As the Super Bowl approaches, the advertising critics are out in force. Most of them will miss the point. When you’re deciding whether the ad you just saw is “good” or “bad”, consider the case of Salesgenie.

In 2007, Salesgenie, a sales-lead-by-subscription service, ran a commercial that was disliked by the vast majority of the media’s judges. Bob Garfield of Advertising Age called it “monumentally brainless and amateurish.” The commercial finished dead last in USA Today’s Ad Meter.

It lives on in cyberspace — enjoy it courtesy of YouTube, and then tell me if it’s a good commercial or a bad commercial:

A few days after the game, USA Today had this to report:

•Salesgenie.com. The sales-lead website generated more than 10,000 new customer subscriptions by late Monday, far more than the 700 it said it needed to break even on its ad cost. “Our ad wasn’t supposed to be funny or clever,” InfoUSA CEO Vin Gupta says. “It was supposed to bring in subscribers, and it’s been successful beyond our wildest dreams. We’re already working on next year’s ad.”

They needed 700 subscriptions to break even on the ad, and they got 10,000. This would seem to be a very nice ROI.

If you were to accuse Gupta and the others involved in producing the commercial of being obnoxious, offensive human beings, you’d get no argument from this blog. But the commercial is an awfully impressive piece of direct-response advertising.

Salesgenie chose a specific target — lazy male salespeople — identified what they really wanted, presented their product as a way for those salespeople to get what they really wanted, and then gave them a specific action to take. The company cheerfully ignored all of the out-of-the-target people who didn’t like the ad, and took their money to the bank.

As Tom Ray points out, Super Bowl advertising often causes otherwise-intelligent local businesspeople to judge their own advertising using the wrong criteria.

If the ad works, it’s a great ad – no matter how many rules are broken or how bad it may look, smell or taste. If the ad is not working, it is wretchedly bad – no matter how clever the production.” — Don Fitzgibbons, the Guru of Ads

 

Most of the Super Bowl television advertisers have a product or service to sell. The commercial must somehow advance the sales process to be effective. As you watch the advertising this Sunday, ask yourself what each advertiser is trying to accomplish.

  • What do they want the audience to do  as a result of seeing the commercial?
  • Did the commercial cause the audience to do it?

If it did, the commercial worked, and it’s a good ad. If not, it’s a bad one. Salesgenie wasn’t counting USA Today Ad Meter votes — they were counting subscriptions. Like it or not, there were more than 10,000 reasons to say that the ad worked. 

If you are a local radio or television advertising salesperson, or someone who advertises on local radio or TV, don’t let the Super Bowl media judges take your eyes off the prize. Artistic merit doesn’t matter — businesses advertise because they have something to sell.

Follow the money. The prize that counts is awarded in dollars.

[reminder]What’s the best Super Bowl television commercial you’ve ever seen — and why?[/reminder]

 

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5 Great Books Every Advertising Salesperson Must Read (Or Re-read) in 2017

We work in the persuasion industry. As advertising sellers, first we must persuade a prospect to meet with us… and then consider our proposal… and then buy. Then we must design a campaign that persuades our client’s prospects to take action.

Here are five books that will help you develop the sales skills to persuade… and sell.

5 Great Advertising, Marketing and Sales Books

The Accidental Salesperson by Chris Lytle: I read the original version of this book more than a decade ago. It was early in my selling career. I was looking for anything that could teach me the sales skills I needed.  This book taught me enormous amount. When the new edition came out, I took it out of the library — being a cheapskate, I didn’t feel like paying for it a second time. Two chapters in, I returned the library copy and bought my own. I wanted to read it and highlight the hell out if it. For example, this:

If you work on straight commission, you prospect for free. You do a customer needs analysis for free. You do the research for free. Then you write the proposal for free… At least you don’t have to pay to make your presentation to the prospect.

What if you did have to pay to make your presentation? You obviously would put more time and thought into it. You probably would even rehearse it a few times…”

I’ve gone from being a salesperson to a combination salesperson/sales trainer role.  I have read that passage repeatedly to groups of radio and television advertising sellers all over the country. It gets through.

Slow Down, Sell Faster! by Kevin Davis: This is one of the rare sales skills books that has actually given me a new perspective on the process of selling. The author’s contention is that we spend so much time focusing on our needs and our timetable that we forget what’s important to the client. He sums it up this way:”Every sales leader wants fast sales; the trouble is, there aren’t many fast buyers…They are unlikely to change their buying process to match your selling process, so your only option is to be the one who switches.”

Influence: The Science of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini A classic in the field — enough science to demonstrate that the author knows what he’s talking about, but accessibly written for salespeople (like yours truly) who didn’t pay attention in science class. Cialdini, who holds professorships in Marketing and Psychology at Arizona State University. The principles he teaches in this book will help you do a better job convincing clients to buy, and can also help make you a better marketer and copywriter.

Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich by David Garfinkel: Although this book is aimed at those who sell with the written word — direct mail, print publications, and web pages — the techniques can help marketers in any medium. However your prospects see or hears your sales message, you have a very short window in which to convince them to pay attention. The headline in a print ad, or the opening five seconds of a radio or TV commercial, will cause your target to either pay attention to the rest of the message or tune you out. Garfinkel gives you a series of headline templates that have worked for selling a wide range of products and services, discusses why each one has been effective, and lists several variations on each headlines. When I’ve hit a wall while writing copy, I’ve gone to this book to help get unstuck.

Dan O’Day’s Guaranteed 5-Step System For Creating 30-Second Radio Commercials That Get Results: Another good cure for (copy)writer’s block, and an excellent companion to the Garfinkel book. I bought this when I was working in radio; now that my primary platforms are television and digital, I still use it regularly. Like Garfinkel, O’Day teaches a headline-based approach to designing a campaign. Besides the headlines, the true benefit of O’Day’s system is in the exercise of settling on a Unique Selling Proposition before starting the script. It’s not a long book, but it’s a powerful one.

[reminder]What’s the best advertising, marketing, or sales book you’ve read in the past 12 months?[/reminder]

Does Your Name Tell Your Story?

There are lots of ice cream store chains in the United States. But there’s only one Big Gay Ice Cream.

Doug Quint and his Big Gay Ice Cream Truck
Photo Credit: *Bitch Cakes* via Compfight cc

The company began its existence in Manhattan as the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck in 2009, and quickly took off. There are now two shops in Manhattan, along with a “permanent pop-up” at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles. The web site indicates that more stores are planned for Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

As a marketing tool, the name has three important things going for it:

  • It is so far from the expected that it forces  people (i.e. potential customers) to pay attention.
  • It establishes a genuine point of differentiation. That differentiation doesn’t have to be the product itself to be significant, which is likely similar to ice cream you can buy elsewhere.
  • It implicitly accepts the risk that some people will be offended, and will refuse to buy ice cream from this truck because of the name. Owner Doug Quint is willing to sacrifice that business in return for a (presumably larger and more loyal) customer base that will seek him out. (For more on this concept, go here).

[reminder]What’s the most unusual name you’ve seen for a (reasonably mainstream) business? Please keep it PG-13 for a family readership.[/reminder]

 

When People Complain About Your Advertising

“Most ads aren’t written to persuade, they’re written not to offend.” — Roy Williams

 

What do you do when people don’t like your ads?

Chaos on my mind
Photo Credit: Hermano Gris via Compfight cc

Not long ago an ad agency pulled a home improvement commercial off the air in Portland and Seattle because several listeners had called the client to complain about it. The client was concerned that he was offending potential customers, and the agency had to  scramble to come up with something else.

So what happens when some people don’t like your advertising?

[bctt tweet=”They don’t have to like your advertising — they just have to buy.”]

Sunny Kobe Cook, whose relentless pitches for Sleep Country USA in the 90’s irritated thousands, once told a seminar audience that she would occasionally work behind the counter at one of her stores.

Customers would walk up to the counter after choosing a bed, hand her their credit card, and then do a double-take. She described the typical encounter like this:

Customer: You’re Sunny Kobe Cook!

Sunny: Yes, I am.

Customer (leaning forward, whispering): I hate your commercials!

“They’re standing in my store,” said Cook, “and making a purchase for a thousand bucks or more. I want everyone to hate my commercials like that!”

Cook annoyed people with her voice and relentlessness. Rob Christensen, by contrast, deliberately pushed the envelope of good taste. Christensen ran Apple Auto Sales of Charlotte, North Carolina. In his TV ads, he played “Reverend Rob”, a televangelist who would “HEAL your credit.” They’re cheesy, poorly-acted, and have the ability to offend on multiple levels.

They also sold cars. You can watch one here.

According to Mike Drummond of the Charlotte Observer, Christensen began running these ads since 1997. Viewers  complained, and some stations  refused to run the spots.

Christensen aired the commercials on stations who would accept them, and took his money to the bank. “I’ve had people tell me they hate my ads — hate them,” Christensen told Drummond. “And yet they still bought a car from me.”

Roy Williams echoes the sentiment:

Ninety-eight point nine percent of all the customers who hate your ads will still come to your store and buy from you when they need what you sell. These customers don’t cost you money; they just complain to the cashier as they’re handing over their cash.

A caution is in order here: An annoying campaign may get you noticed, but you can’t forget to sell within the commercial. The Sleep Country and Apple Auto Sales commercials were more than just exercises in irritation. Each one contained a powerful sales message and a call to action.

Don’t reject an idea simply because some folks might not like it. They don’t have to like it — they just have to buy.

[reminder]If you work in advertising, have you ever had to deal with a client who wanted to bail on a campaign that was generating heat? How did you deal with it?[/reminder]